Comfort food

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Apologies to vegetarian and vegan readers please do not read further. Also anyone whose religion does not allow eating pork. I apologise and do not wish to cause offence.

————————————————————- We had sausage egg and chips for tea tonight. It cheered me up.

It did remind me of the Monty Pythons Flying Circus sketch about a man asking what he can order in a cafe and the list goes from egg and chips through various permutations to spam egg and chips, spam egg and beans u to and including ‘spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam…… And spam’.

I howl with laughter when I see it.

I can remember being sent to the shops by my mum and saying ‘plumrose chopped ham with pork’ over and over so I would remember the convoluted name. I know it was before I was seven. I’m sure it was after we got a black and white TV. I can remember seeing adverts for it. Perhaps I have got the two mixed up…..

Trying to make banana cake without all the ingredients.

I give you (please take some).
Home made banana cake with toffees melted on the top.
Ingredients.
Half self raising flour, half plain flour, about 8oz with a bit of yeast. (what I had in the cupboard).
Some granulated sweetener, about a tablespoon full.
4 oz approx of butter
Two eggs
A small mug of milk.
A bit of orange juice.
Two sliced bananas.
Toffees melted on top for the last twenty minutes.

Method
I added the flours together with the yeast, added the sweetener, then added the butter and broke it up until it was crumbly. Then I added the eggs, mixed in milk. It was still a bit dry so I added a bit of orange juice, till it was quite soft. A bit like wet mashed potatoes.
I then chopped the bananas up and mixed them in. I left it for a while to see if it rose (it didn’t!)
Cooked gas mark four for an hour and ten minutes. About forty minutes in I noticed it was rising but split in the top. So I got some toffees we had at Christmas and placed them on top. The mess is where they melted.
Not pretty but tastes OK. Served the first bit with some ice cream while it was hot. Not bad!

Bread making, USK S-O-T challenge.

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Making not made! I found some rye flour and half a pack of yeast in the cupboard. Hubby and I both worked on it. Really tough to knead. We added porridge oats because it was too squidgy and I’d run out of flour. It’s taking time to rise but hopefully it will be OK… X

Update, cooked OK its a bit doughy in the middle. Not bad. Had some hot with butter.

I did the drawing as today’s challenge was something you’ve made for the urban sketchers new challenge. It’s black ink pen in my A5 cartridge paper sketchbook.

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Using up sprouts

I had a bag of sprouts in the fridge, they needed using up. What to do? I took a mixture of leftovers and cooked something ‘not bad but interesting’ according to my hubby.

First I used up half a small onion. I chopped it up and cooked it in a small amount of butter and olive oil. I added some garlic granuals, dried chives, and dried basil.

I then added sprouts that I had cut the base off, took off the outer leaves and then cut them into quarters. I added some water to the mixture up to the level of the sprouts in the pan and let it gently simmer.

I cut up two large tomatoes that were getting wrinkly and were just past their best before date.

I carried on simmering it to soften the vegetables.

While I was doing this I put on a small amount of penne pasta in some boiling water. I cooked that until it was Al dente (still slightly firm)

As the sprouts were softening I added half a jar of tomato pasta sauce that I’d saved from last night.

If you want to leave it there you can. That would be a vegetarian option. But I had some mini frankfurters to use up, so I cut them into small pieces and added them to the mix. Once they had heated through I tasted the food. It was quite ‘sprouty’ so I took a small piece of cheddar cheese, about a thumb sized piece for each of us and melted it into the mixture. I added a little salt to taste and then drained the pasta and added it to the mix.

Cooking time, about twenty minutes in total.

Don’t know the cost, but not much.

Ingredients

Half a small onion.                              About two big handfuls of sprouts.    Two large tomatoes.                              Half a jar of tomato pasta sauce.              A handful of mini frankfurters.               A small amount of mild cheddar cheese.                                                           A couple of handfuls of pasta.

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I made bread pudding

Bread pudding made, yum!

It was a bit burnt on top. I used half a stale crusty brown loaf, soaked in water overnight. Then I added a cup of dried mixed fruit, and stirred it in to break up the loaf.  Then added two eggs, some milk, three teaspoons of sugar substitute, a few knobs of butter and a teaspoon of cinnamon to make a wet mix. I put it in a greased shallow  baking dish  and baked it in the oven gas mark six (mid temp not too hot). I cooked it for 1 hour and 20 minutes. It came out a bit burnt on top. The bits of crust were nice and crunchy. I served it hot with cream. You could use custard.

One way to use up stale bread. Thanks Frank’s wife for the original recipe.

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Bread and butter pudding.

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What do you do with your stale bread instead of throwing it away? It depends what you have in your store cupboard.

I asked around for an old favourite of mine, bread and butter pudding. A friend obliged and here is her recipe.

You need to soak your bread overnight, that would be good. You need suet . Dried fruit. Sugar. Ground all spice. I beaten egg. Sorry cant give you exact amount. Suet possibly 4 ozs. Sugar about the same about 12 ozs mixed dried fruit and a good teaspoon of the spice. Mix together with the soaked bread and then mix in beaten egg. Put in the oven for about 1 and half hours on number 6. Hope it turns out okay.

I replied that I would have to use butter as I don’t have suet, also the sweetener that I use for cooking. I don’t have all spice, but I’ve got a bit of cinnamon. She doesn’t say what to soak the bread in.  I might use half milk and half water?

Well, if it turns out OK I might let you know. Thanks to my friend for the help.

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Chlorinated chicken

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 In Britain we are about to leave the European Union although 48% of people who voted in the referendum voted not to leave.

To put this in context a ‘friend’ accused me of scaremongering and put a long post on my page saying that chlorinated chicken is marvellous and anyone who was against it were lefie remainers who are apparently too woke??? (what the hell does that mean).

Now I feel guilty because I am speaking against the USA system. But this is what I found on a post on the BBC website on 8 March 2019, and I am using their facts, not my own.

If you read the fact check on the website. ‘is chlorinated chicken bad for you?’ they state that using chlorine is not harmful and cleans up the chickens surface, but this can mask problems inside the chicken where high levels of bacteria can be found like campilobacter or salmonella. It also states that poor hygiene and badly run, crowded abattoirs are hidden by this process. When the two methods of producing chicken were checked, much higher levels of harmful bacteria were found in the chlorinated chicken. So no I will not be choosing it to eat it. 

Favourite food

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I’m making a trifle (my favourite food). I use sugar free jelly in the base, making up about a pint.  Usually I add a little sherry to the mix. This time I used a stale scone cut into pieces to give the jelly a bit more strength. I put them in the base of a nice glass bowl. You can get trifle sponges but I couldn’t find any. Once the jelly has cooled but not set I poured it into the glass bowl covering the scone pieces. This goes into the refrigerator. Later I will make a pint of chocolate blancmange, I use sweetener instead of sugar to sweeten it. (I don’t like custard, but some use it instead). That gets poured on the jelly once it has cooled but is still liquid so that it doesn’t melt the jelly. The bowl goes back into the fridge. Finally I whip double cream till its stiff and spoon it over the trifle. Serve with cherries and chocolate shavings. Enough for six large portions.

Sprouts

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Sprouts to go with this evenings meal. I cut the bases off then cut a cross in the bottom of them. I don’t know if that’s what other people do but it seems to let them cook better. I put them on to boil with water from the kettle for about 15 to 20 minutes. I don’t like them over cooked.

I don’t have them very often. Usually just around Christmas and New Year. They are a seasonal vegetable, a winter crop. Some people think they have too strong a flavour and fry them with bacon. I don’t mind them at all. Definitely one of my five a day.

Full English breakfast

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We don’t have these very often, but as we had gone out to see the train at Apedale we decided to have a full English breakfast. Apologies to vegetarians, there are alternatives available.

Full English in this case consisted of bacon, eggs, tomato, beans, black pudding, sausages and hash browns with two slices of toast. Sometimes they put in mushrooms instead of black pudding.

It was very tasty… . Washed down with a mug of decaff coffee.